SHANTANU Vs. SCHEDULE TRIBE CASTE CERTIFICATE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. A.P. Kalmegh, learned Advocate for the petitioner, Mr. M. K. Pathan, learned Assistant Government Pleader for respondent 1 and Mr. N.S. Khubalkar, learned Advocate for respondent 2 at length.

(2.) Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. With the consent of both the sides the matter is heard finally at the stage of admission.

(3.) The petitioner claims that he is belonging to 'Thakur', Scheduled Tribe which is recognized at serial 44 in the list of the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950. However, on 1/11/2022 respondent 1 - Scrutiny Committee rejected his caste claim. In support of his caste claim, the petitioner produced seventeen documents of which some documents are pre-constitutional. According to the petitioner, the document - 7 pertains to School Leaving Certificate of his great-grandfather, Sakharam Govinda, document - 8 pertains to daughter born to his great-great-grandfather, Govinda Sonaji and document - 9 pertains to daughter born to great-grandfather, Sakharam Govinda and all these documents referred the caste 'Thakur' and the date of entries in Schools showing caste 'Thakur' are 14/6/1926, 26/7/1931 and 1/5/1946. However, respondent 1 - Scrutiny Committee has ignored these documents and rejected the tribe claim of the petitioner on the ground of affinity test and the area restrictions.